Peter Pan in Scarlet (8 page)

The Ravelling Man ate only eggs. He ate them raw, out of the shell or, more often, swallowed them down whole. Among the creatures of the floating islands were lizards, snakes, and turtles who laid soft, rubbery eggs, and Ravello always had some about his person, hidden away in the woollen linings of his woollen pockets. Their presence, either in his clothing or on his breath, gave the man his distinctive smell.

He made himself wonderfully useful around the ship, cooking meals, reading the weather, boxing the compass, polishing the brass. He made the Redskins sew their blankets into warm coats for the League. He knew card games and how to tie knots, and the blood-thirstiest pirate stories you ever heard. He took the clapper out of the ship’s bell so that it would not disturb them when it rang the night watches (which it still did of its own accord). And at siesta-time, he rocked them to sleep in their hammocks. Ravello himself seemed never to sleep at all, night or day.

To Peter Pan he was most attentive of all, polishing his boots, dusting his cabin—even combing the boy’s hair, so that every day it grew slightly longer, slightly darker. It was fun—no doubt about it—to say, ‘Fetch me this, Ravello! Do me that, Ravello, and be quick about it!’

The altogether excellent Ravello offered to cut the SS
Starkey
adrift, but it was Peter’s first battle prize and he wanted to keep it. So even when the steamer came unwedged, they towed it behind them at the end of a steel chain, while Captain Starkey and his crew were shut up in the fo’c’sle with bears guarding them. The floating islands bobbed in and out of the sea mist, sometimes visible, sometimes quite forgotten.

‘What will you do with the Foe, Peter?’ asked Wendy. ‘Because if you are not going to cut them adrift, I really ought to make them some tea.’

‘We’ll sell them for slaves or spit-roast them for supper!’ Nobody believed him, but he sounded wonderfully decisive. Anyway, he cut such a dash in the tricorn hat and thigh-length boots he had found in the bottom of Hook’s sea-trunk: it seemed only right that he should talk like a pirate as well as look like one.

He did take off the scarlet coat for a time. For instance, he took it off to dive overboard where he fought duels with the swordfish, and won their swords from them, so that his Company would never again be caught without weapons. He wrested bones from the mouths of dogfish, too, to feed Puppy. Happily, his bad temper seemed to wash off in the sea.

With all the silverskins eaten, there was no point in them quarrelling any more. The unkind things said could not be rubbed out, but they folded up very small and could be slid away into pockets.

Peter unrolled the treasure map, for everyone to see, and they all gathered round to study the map of Neverland. Inland from the Far Shore and the Purple Moor, the Maze of Regrets, the Elephants’ Graveyard, the Thirsty Desert … a vast blank was labelled ‘UNKNOWN TERRITORY’. At its heart lay Neverpeak, with cartoon clouds around its summit, but inside the Unknown Territory, all tracks and pathways and streams petered out. Landmarks were not listed. Nothing.

‘We shall map it as we go!’ said Peter.

‘And find the source of the Nevva River!’

‘Discover new animals!’

‘Take rock samples!’

‘You might also care to name mountains and lakes, sir,’ suggested Ravello, setting down the afternoon tea.

The Explorers were so enchanted with this idea that they instantly began to do it, even before the landmarks had been discovered.

‘Bags I the first mountain!’

‘The John Darling Falls!’

‘Slightly Sound!’

‘Twin Peaks!’

‘With respect, sir,’ purred Ravello, holding up the scarlet coat for Peter to slip his wet arms back inside, ‘the area is wrongly marked “Unknown”. This Captain Hawk of whom I have heard you speak …’

‘Hook,’ said Peter. ‘Jas. Hook.’

‘Forgive me. This Captain Hook must have
been
there to deposit his treasure chest. Should it not be “Hook’s Territory”?’

‘
Peter Pan’s!
’ cried the One-and-Only Child, circling the whole of Neverland with his raven-quill pen.
‘It’s MINE!
And so is the treasure!
’ Red ink spattered Slightly’s evening shirt.

There was an awkward silence. ‘
Ours
. I think the Captain meant to say “
ours
”,’ said Wendy. ‘Didn’t you, Peter?’

Peter tugged at the white tie round his neck and coughed. There were bright spots of colour on his cheeks. ‘Pour me a tot of Indian courage,’ he commanded. ‘The smoke from Starkey’s filthy pirate barge has turned my stomach.’

‘What’s the little word that gets things done?’ said Tootles without thinking. But Peter glared so fiercely—‘
Semolina!
Rhubarb! Tapioca! Who cares what the little word is?!
’—that she immediately trotted off to brew a pot of tea.

The tea was never poured. Just as Tootles filled the pot, the
Jolly Peter
pitched and yawed and began to swing about. The steam-cutter had begun dragging her through the water, even though there was no one on her bridge, no fire in her boilers, no smoke in her smokestacks!

In fact the SS
Starkey
was being dragged through the water too—not by another ship but by some invisible power that had gripped her keel. She overtook the
Jolly
Peter
and wallowed northward, back-to-front, dragging the brig behind her, her sails turned inside out. The children could only cling on to the fixtures and fittings, wildly guessing:

‘It’s the mermaids!’

‘It’s a whale!’

‘It’s fairy mischief!’

The Ravelling Man ran nimbly down the ladders on his heels, and shouldered his way into Pan’s stateroom, to the chart desk. The dirty wool cuffs scrawled circular stains on the vellum as he scoured it for information. Then they banged down on a shaded patch marked ‘DANGER AREA’.

‘Lodestone Rock!’ he said. ‘It hauls her in!’

‘Magic?’ said Slightly.

‘Magnetism,’ said Ravello.

Soon they could even see it through the brass telescope—Lodestone Rock, a ferrous pinnacle of red rock like a church steeple. Faster and faster the cutter’s iron hull sped towards it like a moth towards a flame. The chain between the two ships was stretched so taut that there was no unhitching it.

‘
Cub-bages, hie!
’ It was a circus-master’s voice again, loud and sharp with authority. The bears went over the side. The Redskins swarmed on deck weeping and shrieking and struggling into cork life-jackets. No need for a telescope now. Lodestone Rock loomed up huge in their path, sea foam boiling all around. Their hulls scraped over rock so sharp that it stripped off all the barnacles. The League of Pan clung tightly to the ship’s rails—except for Curly who was catapulted out of the crow’s nest and into the ocean.

‘Throw out the log-line!’ shouted Peter Pan, and they stared at him blankly, all except for Ravello who threw down a knotted rope to Curly who was drowning in the churning wake. Curly grabbed hold and was towed along, scuffing the toecaps of his shoes on the razor-sharp rocks beneath him.

The SS
Starkey
struck with the noise of a brass band falling off a tram. The brig, being dragged along behind it, was caught by the swirl of currents around the rock and tossed about so violently that the metal towline snapped like a Christmas paper-chain.

‘Now we’ll float free!’ John asserted. ‘The
Jolly Peter
is wooden! Only metal is magnetic!’ The
Jolly Peter
was indeed wooden: so what power could the magnetic Lodestone Rock possibly hold over it?

They found out soon enough.

The iron nails holding every rib to the keel, every plank to every rib, every spar to the mast were pulled out by the force of magnetism. Like wasp-stings sucked out of skin, every nail and cleat came out of the timberwork, and the elegant wooden brig began to disintegrate around them.

‘
She is gone!
’ cried Ravello, falling to his knees, stricken by either fear or grief.

‘
Fly!
’ cried Peter. John snatched up Fireflyer’s top hat, containing its dandruff of fairy dust. The League of Pan plunged in their hands. But in order for it to work, they still had to think happy thoughts, and it was hard to think happy thoughts as the masts tumbled—one! two!—and the hull peeled itself off like an orange.

‘
Think of treasure!
’ cried Peter. And somehow they all fastened their minds on Neverpeak and, one by one, rose clumsily into the air.

Peter, of course, arced and swooped with the ease of a summer swallow. He skimmed the wave-tips, to where Curly was floundering in the sea and, grinding a handful of fairy dust into the wet, curly hair, hauled him up from the water by the collar of his rugby shirt. Curly (and the puppy nestled in his pocket) were so happy not to be drowning any more that they quickly gained height and joined the others in the sky over Lodestone Rock.

Below them, the
Jolly Peter
foundered, leaving only a pattern of planks floating on the water. The tall figure of Ravello, balancing on the wreckage, nimbly leapt from driftwood to flotsam, from barrel to spar. Finally he flung himself across a sea chest that came bobbing up to the surface. With white water churning, and the spray coming off the Lodestone Rock, his wool-clad form was soon soaked sodden—a hank of ancient seaweed caught on the lid of the rolling, pitching trunk. Ravello, being a full-grown man (or a very tall cardigan), could not, of course, fly.

A sudden sob broke from Wendy as someone else sprang to mind. Fireflyer, locked up for his greedy wolfing of spring onions, had gone down with the ship!

Fireflyer bobbed up again like a ship’s buoy, his orange hair brighter than the iron-red Lodestone. His little belly was still bulgy with spring onions and his fingers were spiky with cold. You or I would be bluer for being doused in a cold sea, but Fireflyer, after Peter lifted him up, was rather washed-out, like a sock that has been through the laundry too many times. His temper was just as hot, though, and his fairy dust re-dried on him like a crisp candy coat. He flew in fizzing fits and starts and zigzags, until Peter said, ‘Stop showing off, fairy, or I’ll huff you!’

Sun and moon were both in the sky, with a serving of early stars and a side salad of clouds. Vital to find dry land! But which way to fly? The compass in Neverland has as many points as a frightened hedgehog.

‘Do you still have the map, Cap’n?’ asked John.

Peter brandished the vellum scroll, but when he tried to open it in mid-air, the wind almost snatched it out of his hands. So they simply flew and, as anxious thoughts took the place of happy ones, sank lower and lower and lower in the air. Spindrift off the wave-tops began to wet their faces, to wash off their fairy dust. Just when things were looking black for the Company of Explorers, they sighted land.

A long, rocky promontory pointed out to sea like a witch’s finger, ending in a clutter of rocks and white-water reefs. There were sea-pinks growing in every crevice, and cormorants rose squawking into the air as the Explorers came fluttering down. Oddly, the waterline was strewn with the rusty remains of several hundred prams and baby carriages. Moored up like a rowing boat, on the far side of the headland, was an antique sea chest with the letters
J. H.
on the lid. Oh, and five small islands bobbed at anchor further off shore.

A tall figure stood on the reef, silhouetted against the sky. A halo of snaky threads coiled all about it, wriggling in the wind; it might have been the Gorgon Medusa waiting to turn someone to stone with a glance. But it was not.

‘Welcome to Grief Reef, sir,’ said the figure.

Peter was again struggling with the map in the blustery wind. ‘Hold this chart flat for me, Ravello,’ he said, calm as can be—just as if he had known all along that his valet would be there ahead of him. And Ravello hurried to oblige, cracking the vellum open with a flick of one hand.

It was Ravello who explained about the prams: ‘These mildewed and rusting hulks you see before you are all that remain of a hundred sad stories. These are the perambulators and baby carriages once pushed up and down parks and lanes and city streets by nursery maids in charge of baby boys. These are the prams those nursemaids parked up under shady trees while they dozed; or left unattended while they nipped into the post office to buy a stamp; or to flirt with their sweethearts. These are the prams that got out of control because the brake was left off, and ran away down steep hills. In short, these are the prams that boys tumbled out of, never to be seen again. These are the prams that turned baby boys into Lost Boys, and started them on their long journey to Neverland.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Wendy.

The butler gave a stringy shrug. ‘I am a travelling man, miss. Travelling men get around. They hear things. Rumours. Histories. Shall I go on?

‘These are the prams the nursemaids frantically searched, when they realized the boys were gone—flinging out bedding and toys and rattles and bootees, gasping and oh!-ing and oh-no!-ing. These empty prams are all the wretches were left with, after angry parents sacked them and sent them away without a reference or a forgiving word.

‘These are the prams that the nursemaids rebuilt into little boats, and rowed out to sea, determined to search the world until they found those babies. Hearing tell that Lost Boys were sent to Neverland, they jibed and pitched their way across five oceans, and finally came to grief on Grief Reef.’

At the end of the account, a single question was left hanging in the air, unspoken. Five Lost Boys felt an aching need to ask it, but none of them dared. Wendy spoke it for them. ‘And were any Lost Boys ever
found
by these questing nursemaids, Mr Ravello?’

‘We must hope not, miss! Indeed we must! For imagine the sour rage in the hearts of those women! Sacked! Turned out-of-doors, without hope of another post! Quite ruined! And for what? For the small error of losing a child. No, no! These ladies did not come looking to
rescue
the boys they had lost. What? They blamed all their woes and sufferings on the babes. All sweetness of nature had been washed out of them by the salt sea. They were half mad from drinking sea water … and they were … they
are
… bent on
revenge
.’

The Lost Boys gulped and turned pale. Peter gave a carefree flick of the hands. ‘But they were grown-up, weren’t they? So they couldn’t get into Neverland, could they?’ And everybody felt so much better that they decided to overlook all the grown-up pirates, Redskins, and circus-masters known to inhabit Neverland.

Clambering along the narrow headland, slipping on slimy seaweed and frightening off a pair of seals, the Company of Explorers headed inland for the bruised and purple moors swelling into view. In the very far distance they could see the tiny outline of Neverpeak, goal of their journey. The resourceful Ravello, since arriving at the Reef astride the sea chest, had not wasted his time. While waiting for the children to arrive, he had taken the wheels off a couple of perambulators and fastened them to the trunk, so that now he could haul it bumping and bouncing along behind him. He applied to it for useful items—matches, a pack of cards, tea, pen and ink, and pieces of string. Though the floating islands were left far behind in the bay, along with the animals of the Circus Ravello, he never seemed to run short of the rubbery eggs he ate night and morning.

The children dined, as ever, on food conjured up out of Peter’s imagination (although Ravello did bring out a tarnished silver cellar of salt to sprinkle over their dinners). Surprisingly, Peter’s thoughts seemed to have turned to seafood, so that they ate imaginary lobster and turbot, jellied eels and crabmeat paste. (Tootles even broke out in an imaginary rash because she was allergic to whelks.)

The soft squelching ground of the gentle purple moor became drier with every mile they walked. Instead of moss and heather, soon there was nothing but dry dust studded with bristly cactus plants and strung with tripwires of briar and bramble. It was impossible to sit down for a rest, let alone stretch out on the ground and sleep: it would have been like sleeping in a box of needles and drawing pins. They took it in turns to ride on the curved lid of the sea chest.

Caught on the thorns, and dangling from every briar, were rags of cloth—navy serge or striped cotton, faded organdie or the white lace from the hem of a petticoat. Soon enough, the Explorers discovered why. For they came to The Maze.

A wilderness of rippling sandstone, striped with every shade of blue and grey and sad cypress green, had been hollowed out by wind or rain into a honeycomb maze of corridors and passageways. Open to the sky, it whorled and swirled as far as the eye could see, crossing and inter-crossing, so that a person could wander to and fro and never find anything but another corridor to climb, another flume to slide down. And in among these candystripe cones, archways, and gullies of rock, countless women scurried up and down, calling and calling:

‘
Henry!
’

‘
George!
’

‘
Ignatius!
’

‘
Jack!
’

Their anxious hands clutched handkerchiefs or small toys or corners of blanket. Perhaps, after all, it was not wind or rain that had carved out the soft rock, but the fretful tread of these women’s button boots and sensible shoes, the swish of their old-fashioned long skirts, as they wandered the Maze of …

‘
Witches!
Watch out!’ hissed Peter, and the children all bobbed down.

‘They don’t look like witches,’ said Tootles doubtfully. ‘Where are their pointy hats?’

‘Grown-ups in Neverland? What else can they be?’ said Pan.

‘His lordship is correct, I fear,’ whispered Ravello. ‘This is the Maze of Witches. On no account let them see or touch you or pour their spells in at your ears. These are the women I told you of.’

‘The nursery maids?’

‘Precisely. This is where their travels brought them. Failure and temper poisoned their spirits and turned them into witches. That’s how they magicked their way into Neverland. But now if they see a child—any child—they will catch it and wash it; change its socks and feed it semolina; make it learn its tables and go to bed when it’s still light. Like as not, they will probably even
kiss it
.’ The boys squirmed and grimaced, pulled their heads down into their shoulders and shuddered. Almost as an afterthought, Ravello said, ‘Then they will roast the child and eat it.’

‘It was called something different on the map, I thought,’ mused Wendy. ‘The Maze of … something else.’ But Peter (still beaming with pleasure at being called ‘his lordship’) unrolled the map to check, and assured her that yes, yes, it was: The Maze of Witches. (Please remember, though, that he could not read.)

‘
Edgar!
’

‘
Edmund!
’

‘
Paul!
’

‘
Jamie!
’ The witches kept up their baleful hunting cry. Betweenwhiles, they could be heard sniffing—quite distinctly sniffing—as if to pick up the scent of their prey.

Worming along on their stomachs, grazing knees and wrists on the gritty sandstone, the Explorers inched forward. Within minutes they were hopelessly lost—no longer knew which way they had come, any more than they knew how to get out. Some gulleys were dead ends. Some grew so narrow that the slenderest shoulders would not fit through. Some twisted and turned and doubled back so often that the children lost all sense of direction. John scraped a J in the rock with his swordfish sword-point, and within the next hour they passed the same mark four times over. The un-oiled pram wheels on the sea chest squeaked, and the contents shifted and rattled as it teetered along behind them. But the witches were making so much noise—

‘
Shinji!
’

‘
Pierre!
’

‘
Ivan!
’

‘
Ali!
’

—there was no chance they would hear. From behind and ahead, above and below, to right and left came the cries of the witches hunting for children:

‘
Percival!
’

‘
Richard!
’

‘
Billy!
’

‘
Rudyard!
’

The rocks gave off a strange smell, too, that brought with it the ache of tears. It was Slightly who began to cry first, big teardrops dripping on to the backs of his hands as he crawled along. The Maze was swimming with sadness, and the sadness was as catching as influenza.

‘
Florizel?
’

Directly into their path pattered one of the witches, skirt hems ragged, dance slippers worn through, but the jewels still sparkling around her neck. A bedraggled ostrich feather drooped over her face and she tugged it aside so as to see them better. ‘Is it you, Florry? Is it?’

Peter tried to crawl backwards, but collided with Curly. The witch shouted the name over and over again, so loudly that John put his hands over his ears. Other witches were drawn to the noise:

‘
Children? There are children?
’

‘
Children!
’

Dozens came jostling to catch a glimpse, ran out of their shoes without noticing it, dropped toys and rattles in their haste. Their banshee wailing echoed to and fro. They reached out their arms and cupped their hands and turned their faces up to the sky, saying, ‘
Please! Please let it be him!
’

The Explorers leapt to their feet and ran, dodging this way and that, heads down, sliding down gulleys and jumping from ridge to ridge. Towed along by Ravello, the sea chest bounded and bounced high into the air, knocking over witches, knocking drinky cups and feeding-bottles out of their hands. Those same hands grabbed at the butler instead, snatching and catching in his woollen garment as if they would pull him apart:

‘
Wilfred?
’

‘
Matela?
’

‘
François?
’

‘
Roald?
’

Blinded by tears, Slightly ran straight into another witch—a woman of such hollow-eyed loveliness that his blood seemed to turn to blues music and his heart to pain. For a moment she held his face between her hands, and they stared at each other. There was a maze, too, in the green iris of her eyes … Then Slightly broke away and ran like the very blazes.

In the pocket of the scarlet frock coat the compass banged against Peter’s leg. He pulled it out and (for all it had more points than a frightened hedgehog) worked out which way to run. But there were just too many witches. From high and low, right and left, front and back they closed in: